This car has nothing to really offer as far as real savings or driveability!

We have over 50,000 miles on ours, and it is a pain to drive and to keep up with the maintenance! It is NOT a cold weather car, as in cold, snow, ice. It has ZERO traction except on perfectly dry hard pavement. You cannot wear gloves and drive this car, the gloves interefere with various buttons and controls.

You cannot tow this car from say an icy spot, it will not get itself out of anything like a small slippery incline (call the $100 wrecker).

The car wanders down the highway at it's whim! Just moves all over the lanes. Tire wear is atrocious! Well into second set of tires at 50,000 miles.

The fuel savings is not that great over a more standard compact car. Save money by purchasing a standard car! And working with the dealership! WOW!!
Dealers treat these cars (our dealer anyway) like it is precious metal and charge an arm and a leg for simple things! Heaven forbid anything major occurs!

Toyota, good idea, but please market these cars in California only, they are not northern cars, I.E. Michigan with snow, ice, and sleet.

03-01-2007 11:44 PM

Raymo853

Maybe you should get snow tires instead of another helping of red whine.

03-02-2007 11:29 PM

Towshar

Sorry to hear you're having such a tough time with your Prius. Hmmm...I'm wondering if you got a bad batch or if the prius technology has improved since the model you purchased.

While I haven't owned my car long enough to experience the cost of maintenence or the wear of the tires, this car has been an absolute dream to own. I live in the northeast and have been through 2 snowstorms and an ice storm. It's performed flawlessly. Whether snow or ice, I've driven in it and the Prius has given me quite a bit of confidence in nasty weather.

I'll admit. The tires downright stink, however the TRAC and stability control programs are great. The tires are a pretty horrible choice that Toyota went with. But then again, unless it's a high end vehicle, most car manufacturers sell their cars with a horrible set. They're wet weather traction isn't so great and it has a thin treaddepth to begin with. Through all my cars, I have never purchased OEM after the first set ran thin. My advice to anyone is to go to tirerack.com or any reputable retailer that sells multiple tire brands and get a different set. All tires are not created equal and most non-oem tires cost less and perform much better. My previous car went 140,000 miles and I just started my 3rd set of Yokohamas when I traded it in. If you keep going OEM, you WILL be throwing your money away.

Using the suggestions provided by this website, I'm on track to be saving a lot of money in gas compared to what I spent previously or other cars on the market. If you haven't done so already, I would read up on some techniques to stretch your mileage and efficiency.

From my conversations with other Prius owners a poorly performing Prius seems to be an uncommon occurence rather than the norm. Unfortunately every make and model of cars has its lemons.

03-03-2007 03:02 AM

doogie500

Thanks for the reply and thoughts! Second set of tires are Pirelli Cinturatos, seem to be 'somewhat" better for wet traction, but I get the idea no tire will help during ice and snow such as we have here right now! We have started driving our other cars as we do not trust the Prius in bad weather. I am wondering though, why we experience problems in ice/snow that other "claim" they do not? On probably no more than a 5-7 degree incline, on snow/ice, this car simply would not move! At all! Needed pushed!

Something I have not mentioned before is the silly instrument cluster with the screen and such! Only way to read it is to take your eyes off the road! And then play with the various buttons/pads and such! And you cannot do this with gloves on, everything gets changed then!!

03-06-2007 02:22 AM

TXatheist

doogie,
Why are you driving with gloves on? And most of the controls are on the steering wheel. I got the near-base model and the air/heat, radio and defrost are all right there at my fingertips.

03-06-2007 03:02 AM

macnish1947@yahoo.com

Hello from snowy Albany, NY. I have an '05 Prius that I commute between the Mid-Hudson Valley and Albany (75 miles each way, three round trips per week) with 58,000 miles on it. I will have had it 2 years on Wednesday. OE tires are worthless. I run Dunlop A2 Sports on it in the summer and Toyo snows on separate rims on all four corners in the winter. While it is no match for my wife's Subaru Forester in some snow conditions, I am comfortable most of the time with it - and I have averaged about 47 mpg over the life of the car (miles / actual gallons of gas pumped into it). And other than reducing the transmission fluid flush/replacement and tranny filter replacement intervals to 20k on my mechanic's recommendation, maintenance costs has been minimal. I do my own oil and filter changes every 4k miles, religiously. The wandering sounds like bad alignment. Hope you find a good mechanic outside the dealership, cause it sounds like the dealers are taking you big time.

03-06-2007 09:23 PM

clifforddouglas

Living in Michigan you drive with gloves on frequently, as example right now the temp outside is 5 degrees above zero F. Mostly the controls on the steering wheel, a slight brush with the glove and strange things are turned on and off!

03-06-2007 10:29 PM

TXatheist

Fair enough, I grew up near Chicago and just never wore gloves once I got in the car but that was back in the day when the only thing I had to adjust was the radio...turning it up :)

03-09-2007 08:43 PM

gwdlv

Quote:

Originally Posted by doogie500

This car has nothing to really offer as far as real savings or driveability!

We have over 50,000 miles on ours, and it is a pain to drive and to keep up with the maintenance! It is NOT a cold weather car, as in cold, snow, ice. It has ZERO traction except on perfectly dry hard pavement. You cannot wear gloves and drive this car, the gloves interefere with various buttons and controls.

You cannot tow this car from say an icy spot, it will not get itself out of anything like a small slippery incline (call the $100 wrecker).

The car wanders down the highway at it's whim! Just moves all over the lanes. Tire wear is atrocious! Well into second set of tires at 50,000 miles.

The fuel savings is not that great over a more standard compact car. Save money by purchasing a standard car! And working with the dealership! WOW!!
Dealers treat these cars (our dealer anyway) like it is precious metal and charge an arm and a leg for simple things! Heaven forbid anything major occurs!

Toyota, good idea, but please market these cars in California only, they are not northern cars, I.E. Michigan with snow, ice, and sleet.

For any form of Alternative the idea is not to do it to save money, you do it to save the environment. To think you are going to buy a hybrid so you don't have to spend a lot in gas thus saving you money is not realistic.

Think of it this way if 100 people sold their SUVs that get 15 mpg and they started driving hybrids that got 40mpg on the low end that is a potential savings of 2,500 gallons of gas. Now extend that to 1000 people and you save 25,000 gallons. See how this works.

I blame all of this on the oil companies. Sure everyone wants to make a living but there are better ways to do it. Instead of oil they should be investing in battery technology that could store enough energy as to not need oil any more.

If you are buying a hybrid to save money the numbers just won't add up. The only alternative right now that is cost effective is compact flourescent bulbs. Do it for the environment not to save money.

I "TOTALLY" disagree that if we keep buying Hybrids that we would have an impact on the environment! This is a pipe dream for folks buying these expensive cars!

The thought is nice! But look at it realistically: WITH ALL THE FACTORIES RUNNING, ALL THE WAR PLANES FLYING, ALL THE POWER PLANTS RUNNING, ALL BURNING FOSSIL FUELS, do you really think a few Hybrids on the road are going to make a difference??

Only in the minds of the owners!

I also blame the general public that think their status symbol is a big SUV! How very sad!

If the govenment would tax, and increase MPG numbers for these large useless beasts, then maybe by the numbers small cars could possibly make an impact on the environment!

Right now it is like spitting in the wind!

Drive one (Hybrid) if you may (we do, my wife bought it), but the cost penalties for doing so are significant with no real impact on our environmental problems, these problems are much larger than having a few Hybrids running the streets!